…they were beaten into betterment : on the christianization of Sweden

The written sources concerning the process of christianization in Sweden has for a long time been limited to two main texts, Rimberts vita of St. Ansgarius and Adam of Bremen´s History of the bishops of Hamburg. This is due to a rigid source criticism in the beginning of the 20th century, which put other material – in particular the norse sagas – out of consideration. The last twenty years however, new questions have been raised concerning the christianization, partly because of new archaeological findings, new interpretations of the significance of runic stones and the recent debate about the formation of the Swedish medieval kingdom. The subject has been discussed from many different angles, and with a lot of scholarly effort. This text raises the question whether the christianization of Sweden was a peaceful or violent process, and investigates the possibility of answering the question through an analysis of all the relevant written material available and in the light of recent archaeological findings. There are several methodological problems pertaining to written material from the early middle ages which are raised and discussed. The sources are initially presented from a critical viewpoint, and then the material is analyzed with a matrix construed from the categories Wortmission, Tatmission, and Schwertmission, each with subdivisions drawn from the texts. The author contends that the source material conclusively supports that the christianization was a violent process and also a fairly rapid one